March 31, 2004

Condi Rice & Black Liberals

If you hang around black socialists for a long enough time, you're certain to get headaches. Right about now the hand-wringing is at an all-time high: Condi Rice is about to shoulder the entire Bush Administration.

Like most liberals, black radical liberals wish to take responsibility for assuring everyone in the world will be free of racist oppression. Those of a more educated stripe as befits their higher status in the bourgiosie, look for quite subtle slights, especially those suffered by those like Condi Rice who ought to be queens somewhere in New Nubia. According to such schools of thought, the higher their status in America, the more tragic it is that they will face the same ugly debilitating racism as the rest of us, nevermind the fact that they are not debilitated and seldom even embarrassed. (Still everyone waits for the memoirs when the race card is bound to show the secret suffering.) And so as Rice approaches the stand with the world watching, certain blackfolks will be on point observing the forces of racist hegemony work against she who should be a righteous black sistah. Can you say Anita Hill? While there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with anti-racist activism of any stripe, there is very little that can be learned from how Class Three Racism affects the most powerful class of African Americans.

Of course Condi Rice is a Republican (from way back) and thus earns the emnity of all leftists. This is as it should be and so she earns a tidy amount of dismissive disgust, heavy on the disgust. Rice, like Powell cannot be dismissed. In these days post-MLK and post-X there is a tendency to look for the black leader. And many attending to the fate of African America in our semi-opaque world of culture and ideas seek to exemplify aspects of our unique character and strength in the person of publically recognizable figure. Bill Cosby as the black father is such a Fungible. That counts for negative roll models as well. Thus Condi is often villified and hung in political effigy as a classic example of a sell-out, Uncle Tom and or traitor to the Struggle.

Ironic aint it?

Not to the radicals. Such messages actually combine to make Rice a victim. Ahh. Now it makes sense.

Comments

Condi Rice & Black Liberals

If you hang around black socialists for a long enough time, you're certain to get headaches. Right about now the hand-wringing is at an all-time high: Condi Rice is about to shoulder the entire Bush Administration.

Like most liberals, black radical liberals wish to take responsibility for assuring everyone in the world will be free of racist oppression. Those of a more educated stripe as befits their higher status in the bourgiosie, look for quite subtle slights, especially those suffered by those like Condi Rice who ought to be queens somewhere in New Nubia. According to such schools of thought, the higher their status in America, the more tragic it is that they will face the same ugly debilitating racism as the rest of us, nevermind the fact that they are not debilitated and seldom even embarrassed. (Still everyone waits for the memoirs when the race card is bound to show the secret suffering.) And so as Rice approaches the stand with the world watching, certain blackfolks will be on point observing the forces of racist hegemony work against she who should be a righteous black sistah. Can you say Anita Hill? While there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with anti-racist activism of any stripe, there is very little that can be learned from how Class Three Racism affects the most powerful class of African Americans.

Of course Condi Rice is a Republican (from way back) and thus earns the emnity of all leftists. This is as it should be and so she earns a tidy amount of dismissive disgust, heavy on the disgust. Rice, like Powell cannot be dismissed. In these days post-MLK and post-X there is a tendency to look for the black leader. And many attending to the fate of African America in our semi-opaque world of culture and ideas seek to exemplify aspects of our unique character and strength in the person of publically recognizable figure. Bill Cosby as the black father is such a Fungible. That counts for negative roll models as well. Thus Condi is often villified and hung in political effigy as a classic example of a sell-out, Uncle Tom and or traitor to the Struggle.

Ironic aint it?

Not to the radicals. Such messages actually combine to make Rice a victim. Ahh. Now it makes sense.